


Dance With Me

by Infini



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Prime
Genre: Angst, Dancing, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Racing, Street Racing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-17
Updated: 2013-10-20
Packaged: 2017-12-29 16:51:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1007772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Infini/pseuds/Infini
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sports cars know how to tear up the street, and they can tear up the dancefloor too.  Knock Out is no exception.</p><p>A series of vignettes; not strictly sequential.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sweet

“Dance with me.”

“What?”

 “I like this song.  I want to dance.  And dancing alone looks ridiculous.  So!” Knock Out made a grand, sweeping gesture with one hand, as though to summarize this reasoning within his palm.  “Dance with me.”

 Breakdown was staring at him, resting an elbow on one knee with his head slightly tilted to the side.  Those pure yellow optics were difficult to read on their own, but the big mech’s body language was more than enough to make up for it.  Just in case the frown and furrowed brows weren’t enough of an indication

 “…  But I don’t dance.”

 “Then this is a perfect opportunity to learn!”  It hadn’t really been a question, but Breakdown’s reluctance was somewhat surprising.  It was a simple request, really!  Was it that much more difficult to move to a steady beat, rather than smash a mech’s helm in?

 “I’ve got two left pedes, you know?”

 “You most certainly do not!”  Knock Out put both hands on his hips and a scowl on his face, pretending to be offended.  “I am not that incompetent of a medic!”

 The bulky blue warrior held up his hands, both as a sign of surrender and to fend off any more incoming displeasure.  The fact that someone so large would fight the most ferocious Autobots, but back down from any confrontation with his little red speedster self, amused Knock Out greatly.  He slid in between the outstretched arms, leaning up against Breakdown’s chest and drumming a set of digits across the plating.

 “What’s the problem, then?”

A long cycle of air precipitated any kind of verbal answer, and one large hand rested gingerly against Knock Out’s back.  It had taken an obscenely long time to teach Breakdown how to do that without damaging his finish...  Gentleness had not come easily for him, but he’d at least been willing to learn.  More than once, the medic caught him carefully patting his own arms; only after spying on the third instance had he finally realized that Breakdown was trying to determine at what point pressure began to leave marks on paint.

Certainly dancing would be easier than that.

“I’m not… like you.”  While not quick-witted, the warrior-class wasn’t prone to stating the obvious either.  He was obviously struggling for words, and Knock Out let him search without comment.   “I don’t have your frame, and I don’t move the way you do.  It’s not going to… look good.”

“And?” Knock Out questioned, one brow arching up toward the red line of his helm.  This was all very well and good, but where was it leading, exactly?  He leaned more weight onto the stocky blue torso, but Breakdown turned his faceplate to look at anything that wasn’t red and talking to him.  He tried again.  “Last I checked, our room is not the medbay.  I highly doubt anyone’s going to walk in and comment on your lack of flexibility.”

The fact that the bulky mech only turned to stare toward the door, as though expecting exactly that, didn’t help.  Suppressing a groan, the medic tipped himself a little further forward, applying pressure that had nothing to do with the mass of his frame.  The persistent sense of nervousness that had begun to erode at Breakdown’s mind was another matter for concern, one that would need to be brought up eventually, but Knock Out knew better than to change the subject midway through a discussion.  Pointed digit-tips were just beginning to dig into the midnight paint job when Breakdown finally replied.

“…  You’ll laugh.”

He stopped.  Froze would have been the wrong word, because that implied ceasing all motion.  Knock Out wasn’t one for such dramatic emotional responses, but he did slowly remove his claws from the bigger mech’s chest plating.  Certainly, he couldn’t argue the fact that he took enjoyment from watching those who weren’t as good as him make fools of themselves (there were just so many who fell into that category!).  There was also no denying that he did laugh at Breakdown; could he help it if the brute was honestly entertaining?  But the medic had never thrown him into a situation solely to see him flounder.  He might be a great deal of things he didn’t respect: rules and ethics, speed limits, a prisoner’s right to a fair trial…  Respect was something to be earned, not handed out willy-nilly.  But he did respect his partner.

He wasn’t sure whether he should be offended, or concerned.  Was that really what Breakdown thought this was all about?  Did it say something about the warrior-class’ state of mind, or his own behaviour?

“...  Yes.”  Knock Out slipped free of the large hand, removing his weight from the mech's chest and giving him a modicum of personal space.  They were still close, but not touching.  “That is exactly what I will do.  And then you’ll punch me out, for insulting your ego.”

Breakdown turned to face him instantly, a protest already running through his vocals.

“I wouldn’t-”

The light went on a moment later, surprise and understanding flickering through golden optics.  They both knew the differences between who they were, and what they were supposed to be.  Knock Out offered him a smile, a real one, before lacing their digits together and pulling Breakdown to his pedes.  The phrasing was a bit misleading, for there was no possible way he could move something so large if it didn’t want to move, but the bigger mech obliged the insistent pull to his arms by standing upright.  A quick command sent the nearby music player back to its original, long-finished song, and the medic set about showing his heavy-hitting partner a few simple moves.

Indulging in the assumption that someone who dealt in brute force had to be quite dense in the helm was a mistake few had the opportunity to make twice.  Despite the beatings he’d sustained over long vorns, Breakdown was sharper than he looked, especially when he had an interest in what he was doing.  First aid and other medical care was one such example, and while Knock Out had no illusions that the big mech actually enjoyed learning the ins and outs of dancefloor footwork, he did pick up on the instructions quite quickly.  The medic knew he was a selfish creature at spark, and because he wanted someone to dance with him, Breakdown would oblige.  That kind of… of _good will_ was so rare, especially among the Decepticon ranks.  It had survived this long, regardless of fights and battles and wars, and when one large hand cradled Knock Out's shoulders to gently dip him backward, that selfish part of him hoped it wouldn’t change.


	2. Spicy

“Dance with me.”

“What?”

“Dance.  With.  Me.”  Knock Out grinned, claw-tips tapping against thin silver chest plating for emphasis. “Everyone knows you can, but I want to see it in person…”

Starscream took a step back and produced a flustered huff; a sound he’d been making more often of late, usually in response to something the medic had said.  It seemed that the Decepticon second in command wasn’t used to dealing with anyone as quick-witted as himself.  The reactions brought about by the unexpectedness of a snappy reply were so very entertaining, not to mention that they frequently left the seeker off-balance.

Mentally, of course.  The red grounder knew Starscream had an excellent sense of physical stability, seeing as he was a surprisingly speedy runner despite the unusual configuration of his pedes.  Perhaps he’d ask about it sometime.  Doctor’s prerogative, and all that.

“Come on…”

Cocking his head to one side, he grinned up at the aerial mech with an obvious challenge in his optics.  Knock Out knew he could get what he wanted: all he had to do was prod Starscream’s ego.  Goading was a very effective weapon, when applied correctly.

“I can’t imagine you would have a reason not to…  Unless the cortical psychic patch was more misleading than we were led to believe?”  Or if those apparently impressive abilities weren’t all in the seeker’s mind, he didn’t say.  He schooled his face into a mixture of surprise and sympathy, as though just coming to a realization.  “If that was the case, I understand your reluctance completely.”

Wariness became offense as Starscream (or at least his wings) rose to the bait admirably.  However, both knew that if this had been a serious situation, the second in command wouldn’t have been so loose with his emotions.  It was that sort of restraint which kept them intact on board the Nemesis, while others had long ago been relegated to the scrap heap, or dissection table.  Knock Out wasn’t sure whether to think he got his desired reaction because the seeker trusted him not to turn it against him, or simply that the information wasn’t exactly dangerous.  How could anyone threaten someone with dancing, anyway?

Scratch that.  If Megatron ever asked him to dance, he’d be fearful for his life.  Not to mention his finish.

“And exactly what sort of vested interest do _you_ have in my dancing abilities, Knock Out?”

Ooh, not a bad comeback. Tit for tat: if the medic was going to get something out of this, Starscream refused to go into it without the knowledge he was gaining something himself.  Knowledge was a valuable bartering tool, though honestly he couldn’t imagine what anyone could do with the fact that the Decepticon medic enjoyed a dance to a good piece of music.  Then again, if anyone could come up with a way to make it menacing, it would be the ever-devious second in command…

Knock Out decided that in the interest of pursuing his immediate goal, he really didn’t care.

“I’ll admit, I was rather looking forward to the idea that there was someone around who could keep up with me,” his grin only grew as he watched Starscream fall for it; hook, wire, and solder.  “But if you’re not interested...”

The seeker’s weight shifted from one leg to the other as he leaned forward, wearing that expression of mingled affront and snide superiority that was so perfectly him.  Really him, not the obsequious mask he wore to keep up appearances around more dangerous mechs, or the shrieking commander who demanded perfect servitude from those beneath him.

“‘Keep up’?” Starscream sneered, his faceplate barely a digit’s width from the medic’s. “Do you really think an _automobile_ could measure up against an aerial frame?”

Knock Out flicked his optics away for an instant, toward the music system he kept in the corner of the medbay.  Its omnipresent, quiet background noise vanished, replaced by a hammering baseline carefully crafted to get one’s chassis moving.  Stretching his arms wide with digits splayed, he grinned up at the seeker.

“Try me.”

Starscream did.  He was proud for a reason, as most vain creatures were, and when combined with determination to prove himself superior at something, the result was a perfect storm.  Emphasis on the perfect, Knock Out vaguely noted as he caught himself after yet another spin.  Seeker frames clearly had more advanced gyros than ground-based models, as they required freedom and accurate movement in all three dimensions…  Not that he was dizzy.  That would imply he couldn’t keep pace.

The medic was abruptly tipped backwards, losing his balance for the briefest of instants before an arm hooked around his back to catch him, lengthy claws just grazing his bio-lights.  Shock must have shown on his face, because Starscream smirked and let him hang there for several moments before returning his pedes to the floor.

Knock Out simply couldn’t have that.  He hooked a hand around the second in command’s forearm, deftly avoiding the everpresent missiles as he side-stepped and twisted.  The move wouldn’t have been out of place in a fighting arena, but the only goal here was to painlessly push Starscream’s already hunched posture just a little further forward.

“I’m pleased to see you’re no longer concerned with the quality of your arm reattachment.”

The stunned expression on the seeker’s face made his own lapse of expression entirely worthwhile.  By the time Starscream caught himself, the medic was grinning again, and allowed himself to be spun away into another round of furious dancefloor exhibitionism.

With his back pressed against torso plating, and one set of digits ghosting down the back of a lean thigh, Knock Out found himself laughing.  He couldn’t remember what had caused it, or why, but it was the first time he’d felt like doing so in longer than he cared to remember.  And it felt good.


	3. Bitter

“Dance with us!”

“Excuse me?”

Knock Out lowered the datapad he’d been reading to stare back at a pair of eagerly expectant sports cars.  Two sets of energon-blue optics were bright with anticipation, and that put him on edge: when the daunting duo set their mind on something, it was usually very difficult to talk them out of it.

Especially when you didn’t feel like explaining yourself.

“We got the music player working!”  Smokescreen gestured toward the salvaged machine, pulled from nothing less than the Nemesis’ medbay.  The sight forced Knock Out to suppress a groan; he’d really been hoping that thing would have been too damaged to repair… or at least that its hard drives were destroyed, erasing any traces of its owner’s music preferences.

“We even got Bulkhead to load it up with some of his-” seeing the look of horror on the medic’s face, Smokescreen quickly changed tactics, “- and we checked it all out beforehand.  But there was plenty of stuff already on there!  Whoever was using it last had good taste…”

The medic wished he could enjoy the compliment, but the direction this conversation was taking rendered that… difficult.  Painful as the option was, it was safer to dismiss the words.

“I’d thank you, but the machine was open to all medical staff.”  Never mind that he and Breakdown were the only ones who'd been specifically assigned to the medbay.  “It didn’t have firewalls, so anyone could put what they wanted onto it.  I hadn’t used the thing in… well.  I don’t even remember how long it’s been.”

Dealing with the Decepticons for so long had taught Knock Out many things, one of which was that offering the truth was better than a lie, and that carefully edited truth was better than both.  Lies could be detected and used against you; leaving out little bits and pieces of truth could easily be blamed on having forgotten the details, or not thinking they were relevant.  The fact that most Decepticon leaders were more interested in the big picture didn’t hurt either.  The Autobots were different, but not so different that the same tactics weren’t effective.  They despised lying about anything more important than your new paint job, which made tactful avoidance a very important skill.

He didn’t remember how long it had been, because he didn’t want to.

“Then now’s your chance to get reacquainted!  We’re going to try it out!”

“How nice.”  Fitting so much disinterest into two words was just one of the many skills Knock Out possessed.  He resumed browsing his datapad, which was currently displaying a shopping list prioritized under three main headings: Beg, Borrow, and Steal.  The version which would be sent to Earth would, of course, be heavily edited.  Ratchet didn’t share his sense of humour.

“Go on, then.  Have fun.”

“But, you like music.”

“So does just about everyone,” the medic replied, not bothering to look up from his work.  “Need I explain to you that music and dancing are two very different things?”

“...  Do you not know how?”

Bumblebee tilted his head slightly to one side, optics swirling with genuine curiosity.  That obnoxious honesty was the only reason Knock Out didn’t snap at him.

“We can teach you…  I mean, we’re not great, but we found a stash of videos while we were out scouting, and the humans have a bunch of cool moves I figured we could adapt for-”

“Why are you asking me this?"

His oh-so-friendly new allies reacted much better to vitriol than any attempts at simply avoiding them, likely due to previous experience courtesy of a certain crusty old medic.  But while they afforded him a good deal of respect by nature of his profession, on a personal level they simply would not leave him alone!   As if their attitudes and general energetic nature wasn’t grating enough, their desire to integrate him into their closely-bound unit was positively stifling.  ‘Family’, they called it…  Apparently the Autobots were adopting human terms to go along with their little pets.  It made his underplating crawl, and that was one of the sentiments simply not permitted to dampen the happy atmosphere.

“Well…”  As usual, the touch of causticity had put a damper on the young duo’s energy.  Bumblebee’s doors drooped in almost comical fashion.  “We thought it would be fun.”

Seeing as he didn’t really want to be on the receiving end of glares by the other Autobots for hurting the young ones’ feelings, Knock Out softened his tone slightly.  It was easier than dealing with yet another Magnus Lecture.

“But why are you asking me, exactly?”  Distraction and digression were two more very useful Decepticon tactics.  “You haven’t thought that Arcee would be an excellent dancer?  Her frame is very acrobatic; I’m sure she would have no trouble with… whatever you had in mind.”

The look that Smokescreen and Bumblebee shared suggested that they’d either already tried this, or they were too afraid of her to bring it up.  Knock Out wouldn’t have been surprised to hear one or the other, though watching the two-wheeler cutting both troublemakers down to size would have been very enjoyable.  Seeing as he wasn’t permitted such behaviour himself, he had to live vicariously.

“I guess…”  The pair shifted awkwardly, but still, they wouldn’t be dissuaded.  The blue bot picked up the track after only a moment.  “But she’s got groundbridge duty right now.  You’re not busy!”

It took so much energy for the medic to keep his faceplate neutral that he was beginning to suspect he’d need to recharge early, to make up for it.  In an effort to focus on something other than how difficult it was to keep a tight field, he very carefully crossed his legs and rested his datapad across the upper knee.  One pede refused to stay still, flicking up and down in the air with slow deliberation.

“Oh, no.”  Knock Out’s eyes remained fixated on the screen in front of him, but he didn’t read more than three lines before flicking back to the start. The tips of his digits tapped out a little tattoo against the device’s plastic casing.  “Not busy at all.”

“…  You don’t want to?"

Finally, one of them seemed to get it.  Bumblebee was either better at people-reading than Smokescreen, or else simply the smarter of the two…  The medic didn’t know, and at the moment he didn’t particularly care.  Lengthy digits on one hand straightened as Knock Out contemplated them, head tilted downward slightly so neither audience member would see how intense his stare had become.  They curled and flexed, following a positively ancient medical exercise protocol he’d somehow managed to dig up from his drives.

“Dancing is for the young, the foolish, and young fools.”

“But… come on, Doc Knock!” Smokescreen failed to notice the sudden rigidity of the medic’s spinal strut, or how circular red optics slowly turned to fixate upon him.  “You’re a sports car!  We know you can tear up the street; I’d bet anything you can cut up a dancefloor-”

“What is this, the Elite Guard Inquisition?”

The scything sound of clenching claws was interrupted by a voice from the doorway.  All three turned to find Wheeljack leaning against the frame with arms crossed and a faint smirk on his scarred face.  How long he’d been there, none of them could guess; for a mech with a dedicated interest in explosives, he was surprisingly quiet when he wanted to be.

“I hope I’m not next on your hit list.”  Knock Out could have sworn there was something in the look the former Wrecker shot him before he stood up straight, and walked into the room proper.  “The sports-car-dancing thing is a myth, you know.  There’s a reason you’ve never seen me dance, and believe me, you don’t want to...”

Wheeljack gave the red medic a wide berth as he strode past to inspect the main body of the music system, raising an inquiring eyebrow at the two young Autobots. Smokescreen had already taken steps to join him, spouting instructions on how to activate it and which buttons did what.  Bumblebee moved in moments afterward, hands raised as though expecting to swat someone away from something important.  Both were tossing around lighthearted banter with the scientist-turned-Wrecker-turned-lone-ranger within moments, their previous train of thought forgotten.  Only one mech present noticed that Knock Out had vanished, datapad abandoned on the edge of the table, and he didn’t choose to voice his observation.


	4. Aftertaste

“Let’s dance.”

The sound of tires on the road behind him had alerted Knock Out to his solitude being broken.  He’d been roaming the streets with no particular destination in mind, avoiding craters and rubble that had yet to be cleared away.  If anyone had asked, he’d have told them he was trying to get a feel for the city, or at least the parts of it that remained relatively intact.  But Wheeljack pulled up without comment, engine revving before issuing his challenge.

What kind of sports car would he be, if he turned that down?

The most important rule of an unarbitrated race was to make it last as long as possible, which meant their destination was the broken end of a highway almost directly across the city.  The nice thing about a ruined track was that 1) there wouldn’t be any traffic to slow them down, and 2) the highly variable course left lots of room for... creative strategies.  Knock Out hadn’t quite managed to teach the young ones that racing was about more than just going as fast as possible in a straight line, but thankfully Wheeljack needed no such instructions.  As soon as the road separated, so did they, and the competition began in earnest.

Knowing that his opponent used to be a Wrecker didn’t help to anticipate what the mech was going to do, though it did explain a few things.  A partially-collapsed skyscraper being turned into an on-ramp was the most prominent of these, though the incident involving two broken support columns and a downed radio tower, and the near-collision with what remained of a graffiti-scrawled mural, weren’t far behind.  The finale, as always, was a straight run for the end of the road until they ran out of pavement, finally easing on the brakes as both slowly rolled to a stop.

Watching human racing films was good fun, but the medic couldn’t stand the way they treated their non-sentient vehicles…  The overturned cars, the grinding gears, and worst of all: the tire squealing!  ‘Burning rubber’ seemed to be popular among the fleshy things, but it sent shudders up his backstrut.  Didn’t they understand how painful it was?!  A proper Cybertronian racer never resorted to that, unless necessary to avoid a collision.  It took weeks to grow back the amount of carbopolymer those foolish film stars wore down in seconds, and worse, it had somehow managed to infect Bumblebee and Smokescreen with the idea that this was considered ‘cool’.

Thankfully, it had only taken a couple of real races to convince them otherwise.

“Wasn’t expecting that,” Wheeljack rumbled good-naturedly, backing up slightly before rolling to point his engine in Knock Out’s general direction.  “You’re faster than you look, Red.  Congrats.”

The Autobots seemed to pride themselves on nicknames, but the medic had to admit that being called a colour chafed his chassis the least.  Perhaps it was just because the former Wrecker tended to ignore everyone’s name equally, or it might have been due to the fact that Ratchet had already been assigned ‘Doc’, thus avoiding any use of it in his direction…  Watching the ambulance grouse and grumble whenever addressed as such was also very entertaining.  But Knock Out wasn’t laughing now.

“Really?  That’s all you have to say?”

“What?”  If the flicker of headlights was supposed to be an innocent act, it didn’t work.  “We raced.  You won.  I thought you’d be happy.”

“Don’t _patronize_ me.”

The hiss was easily heard, seeming to echo off of the city walls and out into the emptiness beyond.  High beams seared over dusty panelling as though capable of scalding off the red and green stripes, rendering the subject of the heated stare silent.

He’d caught on to what Wheeljack was doing, somewhere in the vicinity of the fourth ridiculous stunt.  The former Wrecker was showing off, having fun with speed and acrobatics, but he ignored far too many opportunities to overtake his opponent.  The final dash made it clear that his engine was humming at least one gear lower than Knock Out knew it could reach, and there was no roaring attempt to close the gap between them.  Any real racer went all-out at the end, regardless of whether they believed they could take first place.  It was a matter of pride.

“A competition involves a minimum of _two_ individuals trying to win.”

Wheeljack remained mute, which was as good a confession as any verbal response.  If anything, it annoyed the medic more; he knew the mech was competitive, which made throwing a race as confusing as it was insulting.  They stared at one another, glowing headlights beginning to dull in comparison to the light of the rising moons, and Knock Out began to wonder if he should take his chances in going back to the base.  At least no one there was intentionally trying to mess with his mind.

Finally, the white car shifted slightly, rocking back and forth on its wheels.

“…  Newsparks, you know?”  The words, out of nowhere, didn’t immediately make sense.  “Charged full of energy, but they don’t always realize what they’re doing, or saying.”

It took a few moments before the pieces started to fit together.  Wheeljack had noticed that he didn’t appreciate the young ones’ insistent pestering.  He’d stepped in to provide a distraction, then…  Was intentionally losing the race some sort of indirect attempt at apology?  Knock Out wasn’t sure whether to be irritated by the feint, or grudgingly impressed.  It was a tactic worthy of a Decepticon… albeit an incredibly soft-sparked one.

“You’re right, of course,” he said, mirrors flicking in an automobile’s version of a shrug.  “I imagine it’s not wise to leave them unsupervised, either…”

Really, the duo weren’t that likely to cause trouble if left to their own devices.  They were more competent than they appeared, if given sufficient instructions and kept away from major distractions.   Bumblebee was good at reining in Smokescreen’s more easily side-tracked nature, with a patience that belied his age.  Unfortunately, he wasn’t all that difficult to lead, either.  On a good day, they balanced each other out; otherwise, they ended up creating the perfect storm.  And the medic, more often than not, seemed to find himself in the center of it.

“Hey.”

Knock Out had started to turn back to the city, headlights casting a long bar of brightness across cracked and crumbling concrete, but paused when Wheeljack spoke again.

“It’s okay.  To not be okay.”

He grew still, engine dropping to an almost inaudible hum.  The white car hadn’t moved, wasn’t even looking directly at him, but it suddenly seemed like he was the one caught in the headlights. He was fine.  He was fine!  Compared to the people he used to deal with, those two pests were an absolute delight.  Simple-minded and hardly dangerous, with no intention whatsoever of attempting to use him as a stepping-stool for their own purposes...  Besides, the war was over.  Everyone could go back to being best friends with no fear at all because it was all just a really long bad dream-

“You’re used to being a ‘Con.  I get that.”  Wheeljack still hadn’t shifted, as though anticipating the red racer might bolt down the highway at the first sign of motion.  “Getting dumped headfirst into a gang of ‘Bots is probably… weird’s not the right word for it.  After gunning for each other forever, all of a sudden we’re the guys who’re supposed to watch your back.”

Knock Out’s engine almost stalled out, as he’d forgotten to keep his vents cycling.  Conflictingly, it seemed as though his fuel pump was pounding harder than ever; surely it must have been audible through his plating!  And he couldn’t allow it.  It wasn’t right, to feel so unsettled.  This was just a conversation with someone on his side.  A teammate.  Someone who would ‘watch his back’.

There was a word for that.

“I guess what I’m trying to say is that if they start grating on you, just tell them to back off.”

A noise escaped him, involuntarily, somewhere between disbelief and amusement.  It was too vocal to pass off as the sound of shifting gears or wheels on dirt.  The kind of tell, of leak, of weakness that Decepticons did not tolerate.  He’d been followed out here because he’d been too careless, he’d given too much away.  Energon in the air drew the rustsharks, and now he was alone and fatigued from a race-

But these were Autobots!  Soft, foolish, trusting Autobots.  They didn’t see, they didn’t understand the signs, and they certainly didn’t know how to use them.  Surely.

“I mean it.”  Clearly the noise had been interpreted as incredulity toward his statement.  “Magnus can growl all he wants about keeping the peace and scrap, but he doesn’t know what pushes your buttons.”

If they were on the Nemesis, this is where the threats would start.  The blackmail.  The ‘little favours’ that grew into ‘big favours’, until you found something to counterbalance what they knew about you… or else you were in over your helm and drowned.  He hadn’t been living among this ragtag group long enough to dig up useful dirt, especially on someone who vanished for cycles at a time with little or no explanation.  Something else Ultra Magnus, sir, could complain about.

Could a medic pull rank on a former Wrecker?  Would their big blue commanding officer, having been counted among that crew at one point or another, side with someone he’d once worked alongside?  Preferential treatment wouldn’t surprise him one bit, even if there seemed to be no love lost between the two...

“No one does.”

Spinning thoughts slowed drastically, shuffling and bumping into one another before coming to an uneasy stop.  What did that mean?

“You haven’t told anyone what grinds your gears.”

A slight shift of white mirrors was illuminated by the rising moons, sending a blocks of light sliding up and down the visible door.  “You don’t trust us.  Frag, you might not even like us.  And you know what?  That’s fine.  Everyone’s got buttons… some a lot more than others.  But you don’t have to tell, and we’re not asking.  We’re not ‘Cons. We’re not trying to pin you.  It doesn’t matter if it’s those two, or the big Mags himself; you can tell them to back off.  And they’ll do it.”

The words hovered in the air around them, their message left to stand on its own.  Quiet engine humming, and the sound of Wheeljack’s tires shifting in the dirt, were the only things that intruded on the absorption of what was said, and what was meant.  A trickle of pebbles rolled into one track, and were promptly shoved aside by another turn of the axle.

“Heh.  You could tell me to slag off, you know.  But you don’t seem like you’re the type to just say it...”  Backing up a slight incline before rolling forward again, the white car sounded almost amused.  “You could go for the other option.”

With a lead-in like that, it was obvious that a response was expected.  Knock Out consciously ran two stabilizer checks through his vocal system, before trusting it to respond as desired.

“Which would be?”

“Finding a way to blow off the charge.”  When the medic’s mirrors shifted a fraction, he took it as a sign to continue.  “Everyone does something different.  Take Bulk; he starts telling stories when he’s in a mood.  Remembering the good times gets him back on track.  But Arcee never sticks around when he does it, because that’s not her thing.  And he gets that; he doesn’t do it when she’s around… much.”

Wheeljack had tired of his restless shifting and drove forward in earnest, leaving a car’s width between himself and the red racer as he pulled back up onto the mostly-intact roadway.

“Me?  I like a good long drive…”

There may have been a spark of amusement in his voice as he continued, headlights pointed straight into the city.

“Off-road, of course.  Tear up the countryside, feel the dirt under your tires, the mud up your-”

“Barbaric,” Knock Out muttered, quietly, but not so quiet that Wheeljack wouldn’t hear it.

“Hey now, don’t knock it ‘till you’ve tried it.”

“I’ve driven more than my fair share of back roads, thank you.”  Falling into the rhythm of snarky roadway banter was so easy, the medic hadn’t even realized he’d started moving again until he was midway through the sentence.  By then, his own tires were back on mostly-solid pavement.  “I have no desire to do so more than strictly necessary...”

Pulling up alongside the striped (and slightly dusty, now that he was close enough to tell) sports car, Knock Out gave him a sidelong glance.  Both seemed to size each other up for a few engine cycles, as though uncertain of where this was going to go next.

“...  Hey.  Red.”

“Mm…?”

The sound of a shifting transmission, and the former Wrecker’s engine issued a throaty growl.

“Race you back.”

Stars speckled the sky overhead, winking down at them between Cybertron’s suspended moons.  Thrumming engine pistons kept night-time silence at bay, a heavy and impatient undercurrent to the space between the question and any possible answer.  But instead of a vocalized reply, or even an affirmative comm, Knock Out shifted gears and went roaring down the highway, back through what remained of the city gate.  Wheeljack lost a whole three nano-klicks of driving time to his own surprise before tearing off after the vanishing silhouette, a trail of dust clouds and highly insulting comms in his wake.

Anyone driving at those speeds was demanding to be raced.  And what kind of sports car would he be, if he turned that down?


End file.
